


Hanging On

by AbelQuartz



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Atmospheric, Autumn, Crying, Gen, Mentioned Rose Quartz (Steven Universe) - Freeform, commission, fall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 05:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbelQuartz/pseuds/AbelQuartz
Summary: It was spoken in anger, but it was spoken regardless. After Steven runs out in a maelstrom of emotions, Pearl follows to see if she can right any wrongs that may have arisen from her words.[Commission for stevenquartz on Tumblr]





	Hanging On

**Author's Note:**

> (Psst! Want to commission a story of your own? Check the info after the story!)

Pearl watched Steven from the edge of the teleporter. He was never allowed to sit on the edge like that, but now was not the time for chastising. The coolness of autumn was nearly freezing up here, and the clouds hushed the sunlight before it could warm the training ruins. **  
**

Down the steps, across the arena, Pearl approached the boy. Her hands clenched behind her back as she came up close enough that she knew he could sense her presence. Even from this distance she could see that his arms were trembling; from what, she didn’t know. Steven sat as still as he could manage. Only his black curls wavered in the wind, gently caressed.

She wanted so badly to say something. The child had stormed out with such anger that she knew it was a bad idea even now, but by the stars, she needed to say something before she burst with him. The knots in her stomach only grew tighter as Steven finally turned his torso, raising and rotating one leg to rest back on top of the platform. His cheeks were perfectly dry, and a chill ran down Pearl’s back. He thought he was containing himself, but she knew the dam couldn’t hold him forever.

“I don’t care if you’re sorry, Pearl.”

“Steven - “

“I don’t CARE!”

That was the shout she hadn’t been anticipating, and the fist that punctuated his last word slammed down onto the stone, splintering the marble underneath Steven’s knuckles. There, now the tears were coming down his cheeks, and now his chest was heaving, and Pearl felt familiarity in the trembling of his lips. Anger radiated around him like a blanket.

She only dared to take one step forward as she knelt down, hands on her knees, legs taut. Steven didn’t move as she spoke.

“I was wrong. And I don’t know how to make it right again. No matter how much you care or don’t care, I am still sorry, Steven. More sorry than I can ever say.”

Up here, the wind was quieter than when it blew through trees or dunes. The space it filled, however, was silent, and the whispers of air that came across the two were deafening. Even if it was in rage, even if it cut to her heart, Pearl wished that Steven would just say something. Several beats passed before he lifted his head, slowing his breath as he pulled himself off the edge and stood to face her with his fists curled.

“Why would you even say things like that?” he asked. “‘Rose Quartz wouldn’t do this,’ ‘Rose Quartz wouldn’t do that,’ like - like I wasn’t there?” The child jabbed his fingers into his chest. “Did you think I couldn’t hear you? Do you think I’m too stupid to understand what you were saying?”

“Steven! I would never - “

“I KNOW when I make mistakes! A-and I’ve been stressed too, and maybe with all this, that’s why I haven’t been able to focus or help or whatever it is you’re looking for, but - is that really what you had to say?”

“We are all stressed, Steven!” said Pearl. “I know that my mind can say some… Sometimes I think horrible things, things I know I shouldn’t think, or hear, but they come out and you never, ever should have to hear that - “

“Rose Quartz wouldn’t have this said to her at all,” Steven snapped.

Pearl opened her mouth, and the jumble of words that made up the replies in her head all clumped together, clogging their exit from her tongue like leaves in a gutter.

Steven turned his head to the side, looking down at the eternally cracked stone. The furrow in his brow unknit itself, smoothed back from fuming into mere weariness.

“When you say things like that, things about how better she was than me,” he said in languid measure, “I feel… Like I don’t exist. Especially when you’re mad. I know that when I’m mad, I don’t think about the things that I say, but I say the things that come up first.”

A lump weighed in Pearl’s throat as she watched all the anger drain down his face. Even though his fists were still clenched, Steven’s eyes scrunched as the tears came again. His lips trembled as if too crowded with the things he wanted to say. Pearl cried silently, holding her mouth shut through force of will alone.

Steven sniffled. “And I don’t know. I don’t know what you - say, what you mean, I don’t know if it’s true but it hu- “

He couldn’t get it out. Steven stood tall with his hands wrenched up to cover his face, muffled sobs coming through his fingers as his body broke down. Pearl lowered her gaze to the floor of the training arena and tried to breathe.

She couldn’t begin to imagine the pain. With Rose, she had always been the only Pearl, the first Pearl, and she had been able to sever her origins. She could still see where Steven was holding on to the past like the edge of a cliff, held above the unknown by his own uncertainty. Being Steven, being human, was too mutable for any of them to know. And just when he was ready to go down those paths, Pearl had pulled him back to the dead end of her own misgivings. She too needed to let go. But for both of them, the fall always seemed too great to face. Now, more than ever, the twisting of the knife felt like a new wound entirely.

When she raised her head again, Steven was staring at her, and the shame on his face almost made Pearl choke. One hand was in the other, held in front of him like his mother’s portrait in the living room.

“I won’t ever be good enough, will I,” he whispered.

Once more, the wind responded for her. Both Gems stared at one another in silence, one with no more questions and one with no more answers. Pearl’s mind begged her to reach out, to hug him, to embrace the child that she had never loved more than in this moment. Her fingers could only clutch at the corners of her dress as Steven’s nails dug into the bones of his wrist.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank y'all for reading, as usual~
> 
> Commissions are both open and needed! Plus, new stories can come with art as well. If you'd like more information, you can check out my post on Tumblr here: https://tinyurl.com/y7sc8bjm
> 
> <3


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